The Diagonal: Yukon Quest Part I: Hitting the Trail

Note: This is the first of four daily posts on my experience with the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Check back tomorrow for Part II: Mile 101 to Dawson City.

Photos by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

I usually start my long blog posts "en media res," using a descriptive tale to bring you into the moment. Really, check the old posts. I'm that formulaic.

But what story could bring you into the Yukon Quest? How can I possibly find the precise combination of words to let the few Diagonal devotees, 99 percent of whom have yet to see a full winter, what it's like to follow a 1,000-mile sled dog race?

So forget that. Let's get down to brass tacks and save the flowery stuff for later.

The Yukon Quest runs between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon, reversing direction every year. It's the route that people traveled by dog team for trade in the old, old days. This year, the race started in Fairbanks.

From Fairbanks, the trail cuts through Two Rivers (Angel Rocks and Granite Tors country) up to the Steese Highway where it follows mountain and river trails to the Yukon River city of Circle. Then, it's off to Eagle on the Yukon River and across the Canadian border to the midway point and party haven of Dawson City, where mushers must spend at least 36 hours.

Ah, Dawson. . .

Crap! Off track again. The final half of the route teeters around the Yukon River and stops by the Klondike Highway towns of Pelly Crossing, Carmacks, Braeburn and finally Whitehorse. The Yukon section is typically warmer and has a better trail since the Canadian Rangers -- their military's Far North information officers and reserves -- traditionally prepare the path. The Rangers backed out this year, but the guy who headed the operation, John Mitchell, was hired to do it again and the result was similar.

Mushers can't get outside assistance except in Dawson City and must finish with at least six dogs. They can leave dogs behind at checkpoints or other designated areas, called dog drops. Got it? Good.

I didn't even know that much when I started covering the race. What's more, I was doing double duty as a radio correspondent. The tough economy has forced a lot of cuts at newspapers across the country, and the News-Miner's feeling a slightly gentler pinch than, say, Southern California, but we're still cutting back and needed a partnership with public radio station KUAC to help foot the bill. Otherwise, we'd have turned around in Circle and covered the rest by phone interviews, which is a fairly inaccurate and flavorless way to report on a sled dog race.

So KUAC news reporter Dan Bross hooked me up with a microphone and a Marantz recorder. After an hour of explanation and an hour of fiddling around on my own, and I was ready to make some crappy recordings. My assignment was to send Dan a few clips per day and be interviewed by him on weekday mornings at 6:45 a.m. -- which is perfect for someone with an 11:45 p.m. newspaper deadline (there's a twinge of sarcasm there, if you didn't notice.)

I've got a face for radio, especially with my on-again-off-again bushy beard. But the good Lord also blessed me with a nasally mumble that must make do as my voice, so the call-ins were going to be interesting, I assumed.

The first place I did a lot of information-gathering was at the vet check, where mushers bring their dogs in to be tagged with a microchip and get a health inspection. I brought the Marantz and got used to looking like this:

Photo by James Brooks/News-Miner

The mushers weren't as closed-lipped as advertised. With a little chatting, they're fairly open to answer any questions; well, as much as most other athletes, anyway.

At the vet check, I met some of the people that would become my personal favorites along the trail, namely Katie Davis, Pierre-Antoine Heritier, Sam Deltour, Dries Jacobs and Peter Fleck. These are folks who didn't stand much chance at winning and seemed to be enjoying the experience more than others. Sam especially won me over by describing one of his main leaders as "the most gorgeous dog ever" and "a sassy little bitch." Honestly, I judge people favorably if they're what we newspaper folks call "good quotes," even off the clock.

At 12:30 p.m. The star of the show arrived. Lance Mackey is the most well-known dog musher on the planet. He's the Alaskan Lance Armstrong, since he's won four Yukon Quests and three Iditarods and beaten throat cancer. Really, what can I ask him that he has not been asked 1,000 times? So I asked him what he's been asked 1,000 times and was filmed by a Japanese person while doing so.

Oh yeah, there was an 18-person Japanese film crew shooting a documentary for a public broadcast service. They went everywhere and interviewed everyone. Izumi, their translator, was very courteous and the swarm of Japanese people traveling across the Yukon Quest trail was a spectacle in itself. From what I observed, that documentary will turn out fabulous.

The six days were basically a ritual of celebrated waiting. There was a banquet where mushers drew their starting order from a hat and waited until Saturday. There was a "meet the mushers" event where the racers signed autographs and waited until Saturday. Then there was Friday, when everyone just waited until Saturday. Except for me, News-Miner photographer Sam Harrel and three-time champion Hans Gatt.

I needed a solid source for my pre-race story and Sam needed a fresh photo, so we met Gatt in the parking lot of the Alpine Lodge, where he was staying until the start. He let his dogs out of the dog truck to run around and loosen their legs, so Sam got some nice photos. He chatted with me about the race, and despite my limited experience, I came up with a pretty interesting piece. The dogs were pretty well-behaved, besides peeing and pooping everywhere. We also met Susie Rogan, Hans' better half who was probably the most media-friendly person on the trail. She's talkative, sassy and the perfect foil to Hans, who's always thinking of his next objective.

We grabbed breakfast that morning with Annalee Grant from the Whitehorse Star. She was going to ride up to Circle with us, and the Star was going to provide our ride from Dawson City to Whitehorse. I was expecting a woman in her 30s or older with the typical professional-woman look: conservatively styled hair, biz-cas dress, ect. That was not Annalee -- a 21-year-old with pink and blue hair and a Reptar hoodie. The surprise was welcome. I was mentally prepared to be the kid on the trip, and now I would be spending time with someone who wasn't only young, but even young by my standards.

Finally, race day! No more waiting! Well, not much. I showed up at the Borough Assembly parking lot-turned-dogyard at 8 a.m. to catch some of the first mushers to arrive. The starting time was 11 a.m. The rookies were the first to show up, eager and nervous. By 9 a.m., most had gotten their sleds and equipment ready, while the veterans were rolling in -- just in time to get ready while the rookies anxiously eyed their fully packed sleds for an hour.